The Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) was established by cable television network operators to facilitate transporting data packets, primarily internet packets, over existing community antenna television (CATV) networks. In addition to transporting data packets, as well as television content signals over a CATV network, multiple services operators (MSO) also use their CATV network infrastructure for carrying voice, video on demand (VoD) and video conferencing packet signals, among other types.
Broadband services can be delivered via existing cable infrastructure from MSOs, digital subscriber lines (xDSL), integrated service digital network (ISDN), public switched phone networks, or T1 connections from telecommunications operators or internet service providers, satellite from satellite operators, or wireless services (such as, e.g., cellular, 802.11 or Wi-MAX standards) from wireless service providers, among many others. Typically, subscribers access multiple broadband communications devices at their location to provide such varied services, with each device assigned a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address.
The growth of network devices such as, for example, cable modems (CMs) and multimedia terminal adapters (MTAs) has expanded traditional data services to provide additional functionality such as, for example, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephony service in a single integrated device. Furthermore, additional embedded components are increasingly added to existing integrated devices, each requiring one or more IP address. As embedding additional components and customer premise equipment (CPE) devices requiring unique IP addresses becomes prevalent, the need to alleviate the problem of IP version 4 (IPv4) address scarcity becomes significant.
Typically, with an open dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), the need for enforcement of IPv4 limits becomes increasingly critical. To mitigate the problems of IPv4 scarcity, some standards such as DOCSIS have standardized CPE device limit that are present behind a user modem. Moreover, the increasing use of IP version 6 (IPv6) has greatly reduced the scarcity of IPv4 addresses. However, there is currently no solution for a service provider to enforce IPv4/IPv6 limits such as, for example, allowing a user to be granted a greater number of IPv6 addresses while simultaneously continuing to limit maximum IPv4 addresses.